No worries, I wouldn’t want to overload you with too much information, remember you are starting from a very low base, so a postcard’s worth at a time will be quite enough for you to cope with.
Hope you have progressed from printing with a pencil to joined up letters using a biro or even a proper pen. Oh I forgot Australia has yet to get homing pigeons to fly to the UK. Even if written on the fly paper… looks as if I will have to collect personally to see wot you writ
We don’t need homing pigeons, we have QANTAS the safest airline in the world.
Cooo. Cooo
You have been on many holidays, just sayin!
Not at the time, that was many many years later
Yep, at 60+ spose one is entitled to a bit of smugness. 
Our house is worth around £475.000 but the only ones who will benefit from that are care homes or the children if we die never needing care. Legacy money is about the only way some children will be able to buy their own houses now. Times and conditions are different to when we were young. I think we lived in a golden era. Possibly the last one where most young people could expect to buy a home through being frugal …and keep it until the mortgage is cleared. I know young people spend on travel, meals and coffee but even if they didn’t, I don’t think the money saved would contribute all that much to buying a house in 2023.
nearer 80 yrs here
Mart
What some do is go into rented accommodation and what they pay in rent could have gone into a mortgage. To me this is a big mistake. Same as working for others, the people you work for get the money instead of being self employed and the money goes into your own pocket
I rented to start with £4.00 a week for a semi in 1966. Just me working for Radio Rentals as a repairman at the going rate of the day. Even so, I was able to find a deposit for a house by working nights on another job. Come home, get some sleep and then onto the day job. The thing is that I don’t reckon even that would work in the present day economic situation.
Remember how you could stick a pin into the ‘Situation Vacant’ section of the local newspaper and take your pick? That just isn’t the case in 2023. The jobs and opportunities are not so abundant as they used to be. That’s part of what I mean about a golden era. Unfortunately, I think that saying, “If you do what I did you can afford a house” would work now.
2 Likes
That was my take on it too. We did everything legal to add to our deposit savings and as soon as we had reached the aimed for £1k we found a 2up 2down semi then negotiated the price to our mortgage company’s delight, then married in a registry office. That was The Cooperative Permanent BS, which morphed into The Nationwide and now they are our bankers after we became completely disillusioned with Barclays.
Our first (1972) was a 2 up 1 down middle terrace of 3, the downstars room was so small you could almost reach opposit walls with arms outstretched. Behind the downstairs living room was the kitchen and behind that the bathoom. bought price with mortgage £7500 sold 2 years later for £9500. moved to a 3 bed 1930’s semi for £13,000.
Strangely enough i still remember the joy of closing the front door of our first house for the first time from the inside and shutting out the outside world
Ours was small too just like the rest of the house; and yet the back garden was far too long for the size of the house. It was well over 150ft from back door to the rear access track. We were in a hurry to upgrade so were saving and looking almost as soon as we had moved in.
I think we both started off more or less the same. First house as a jumping off point onto the housing ladder.
1 Like
Yes, ours too was a jumping off point, especially as child No1 was on her way almost as soon as we had moved in. No2 was not far behind No1, so by sheer luck I found a large detached pile that still sported poorly repaid WWII damage from when a bomb fell just yards for the corner property. I made a very cheeky offer which the executors put to the beneficiaries telling me it will probably be rejected, but to our delight it was accepted as their costs were building. My widowed grandmother liked the house too, so offered to help financially with the work needed if she could have the ground floor/semi basement as her new home. That left us the remaining three floors, so we were overjoyed to accept her offer. Nan became our live-in child care/nanny and we all jogged along nicely. My four girls adored my Nan and were heartbroken when she eventually left this life.
That house was eventually sold when my employer offered me a new position with financially assisted moving and then some years onwards, by 42, I was mortgage free. At 43 I bought my 1st rental property and never looked back.
Housing is comparable to the funeral business, in that both are essential 
I’m still living in the first house I bought. I have owned a few others in the meantime but never lived in them.
Originally I paid $47000 (£24000) for it over 40 years ago, I have no idea what it is worth now and don’t care.
Bruce everyone to their own. We bought originally what we could afford at the time just to get on the housing ladder. We had no intention of staying but it was a start
Not many stay or want to stay in their first bought property. As you said, it was a start and we all have to start somewhere or forever live in someone else’s property.
Since my last post now having been in this house for about 9yrs last fixed-repaired- modernised about everything that needed doing . The previous owner we called Mr Bodget as everything he did was a bodge job. Far too many to mention on here. Valuation wise no rapid value increase if any but on the other hand no loss either.